


A Man Woke Up in a Desert

by Nines35711



Category: Original Work
Genre: Deities, Deities Controlling and Manipulating Humans, Exhaustion, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Injury, Memory Loss, Mind Manipulation, Repetition, Sunburn, Time Loop, of sorts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-08-13 16:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20177539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nines35711/pseuds/Nines35711
Summary: The Sun is scorching. The sand is merciless. The only break in an otherwise empty landscape is a single cactus.





	1. Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This work has incredibly short chapters. Most won't be more than about 200-250 words, and it is intended to be formatted that way.

A man woke up in a desert. The Sun was rising behind him, the sand still cool under him. A cactus sat to his right, the only marker in an otherwise empty landscape. He stood up and began walking.

As he walked, the sand heated up and burned his feet. The man walked all day and when night came, he grew tired but did not stop walking. His throat was dry and his stomach ached but still, he walked on. His walking continued into the night and the next day. He saw nothing as he went on, the cactus nothing but a vague memory.

On the third day, he was exhausted. His throat felt raw and his head swam. It felt impossible to keep himself upright but his legs kept going. At midday, the sun was blocked by fast-moving dark clouds. They rolled and rumbled ominously until a single drop of water was released. Suddenly, thick sheets of rain pelted his skin.

His feet slowed to a stop and he finally fell to his knees. The man tilted his head back and opened his mouth to try and drink the water. When his thirst was quenched, he collapsed completely onto the sand, succumbing to his exhaustion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and I thank you for reading.


	2. Noon

A man woke up in a desert. The Sun was directly above him, beating down on his back and the sand. It had already begun to burn his skin. A cactus sat to his right, the only marker in an otherwise empty landscape. He stood up and began walking.

As he walked, his skin was scorched under the intense heat of the sun. The man walked for an entire day and far into the night. He was mumbling deliriously to himself, begging for the rain or the cactus. His walking continued on into the next day. He saw nothing as he walked, though he hoped for even the slightest glimpse of his cactus companion, even if it meant he had been going in circles.

On the third day, he felt like he could barely keep moving. His legs pushed onward of their own accord until once more, dark clouds covered the sun.

Like a spell was broken, his legs gave out from underneath him as suddenly as the clouds had come. Heavy rain pelted his body, soothed his skin and when he no longer felt like he would cough up ash, he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and I thank you for reading.


	3. Evening

A man woke up in a desert. The Sun was setting in front of him, its warmth hardly touching him beyond the residual heat on the sand. Every part of his body was reddened and sensitive to touch. A cactus sat to his right, the only marker in an otherwise empty landscape. He stood up and began walking.

As he walked, the cool air caressed his burnt skin. The man walked into the sunset, and away from the moonrise. The night did not tear moisture from his throat like daytime. His body had a short respite from extreme dehydration. The sun rose again after endless walking and he was pelted by its blistering rays. His eyes scanned the golden sand for any hint of a difference and when he found nothing, he found himself wishing for that single, sad cactus. He walked once more into the night.

When the sun began to set for the third time, the sky turned dark and rumbled once more. The rain didn’t fall for a good while, but his legs stopped moving anyway. He stumbled down and fell into the sand, blessing whatever had broken him free of his endless walking.

He lay under the shade and harsh rain, soaking up the water like, well, like a parched man in the desert. He fell asleep once more to the torrent washing down on him. It felt like heaven to his aching body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and I thank you for reading.


	4. Great God in the Sky

A man woke up in a desert. The Sun felt less scorching on his back. He saw nothing besides some vast, distant mountain peaks on the horizon. He was left with a dull ache he couldn’t remember earning. He stood up and began walking.

As he walked, he tried to remember how he had gotten there. Nothing came to mind even when he searched into the deep recesses of his brain. He walked into the night and on into morning, growing tired and hungry. His throat tightened with thirst. He kept going though, thinking about what could possibly lie ahead. His imagination didn’t bring him any ideas.

Still, the man kept walking, into another moonrise and moonset and into a third day. By then he was stumbling, but some nagging burn in the back of his brain told him to keep going so he listened to it.

For some reason, he expected rain. When he saw no dark clouds and felt no cool rain by midday, he was disappointed and verging on crying. When the sun set, he saw something in the near distance. It was something shiny, and it was large. With the last bit of energy he managed to scrape together from his body, he ran towards it. It was a trailer. There were people there, real people and not just wisps of thoughts.

The man remembered why he was there, and when he collapsed into the arms of one of the people who approached him, he was murmuring about the Great God in the Sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and I thank you for reading.


	5. Rest

The man woke up in a simple cot. It was small, and the room it was in was cool and protected from the Sun. He saw plain walls and a small bedside table with a half-empty bottle of water on it. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

He didn’t recognize this room, nor did he know how he had gotten there. The cot was, however, comfortable enough that he didn’t plan on leaving any time in the foreseeable future. Another person came into this room. They wore a dusty white lab coat with rolled-up sleeves and smiled at him gently. He was looked over and then covered in some weird gel that had both a sharp and soft smell, and made him feel cool despite the raging burns on his skin. He didn’t get the chance to say thank you before a mysterious voice called them out of the room.

It was for a good while after that that he was left alone with his thoughts. Through a small window above his cot, he could hear the people talking and he could glimpse the Sun. The bright light made him feel dull and dizzy whenever he looked at it, and he had an overwhelming urge to get up. The blankets were too soft for him to consider giving them up though.

The person came back when the sun had gone down, reapplied the weird gel and then left him to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and I thank you for reading.


	6. Recovery

The man woke up on the cool white cot once more, his skin felt less sensitive but it still ached when he moved too much. There was a noise coming from outside that he registered as music, though he couldn’t remember the last time he had heard any music. It made some odd droplet of happiness splash across his chest. He got up and started to follow the music.

Outside, the people who had saved him were working. Some were going in and out of a small white tent he couldn’t remember, others were collecting sand from the ground and putting it in containers, and still more were looking at big machines that didn’t make sense to him. He rasped out a hello before his eyes turned to the sky and he saw the sun.

His legs itched to start moving, but one of the workers ushered him into the tent before he could do so. They were talking fast about something that he didn’t understand. The man just stood there and listened. He didn’t know what else to do.

A cup of odd sludge was pushed into his hand and the person mimed drinking. He mimicked it, though he spilled some of the sludge down his face. His stomach grumbled appreciatively. He was settled into a chair and left alone while work continued. The workers spoke words that he recognized but he couldn’t grasp their meaning. It was all just noise. It made him bored and restless.

The man was later taken from the tent to the small trailer he had been staying in. There were several scattered around, presumably for the workers, and his was right in the middle of everything, providing gentle noise for him to sleep to. He had grown rather tired of constant, nerve-wracking silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and I thank you for reading.


	7. Communication

The man woke up in a glaring white space. It hurt his eyes to look at anything so he closed them. Something spoke to him, whispered in his ears. It hissed encouragement and worship and anger and death into his mind. He didn’t know what spoke to him, but it was the most comprehensible creature he had heard so he leaned into the voice.

He woke up once more in a cool room. The words of the white space swirled around his mind. When he tried to say them to the worker who helped him apply the cooling gel and drink food sludge, they just looked at him oddly and spoke in the language he couldn’t understand. He grew frustrated and stopped talking.

He explored the trailer he had spent the last few days in. His legs itched terribly as he walked around the small space. There were two more rooms with cots piled in them, and a little bathroom he had used before, but nothing stuck out to him so he wandered out to the white tent.

The sun bore down on him as he went between the structures, stabbing into his skin and eyes and brain. He began to mumble without his own consent. It was words he understood, though none of the workers seemed to comprehend it. It made him want to scream.

The man knew what he was saying, but no one else knew. He was talking about the Sun, the Great God in the Sky and its hunger. They just kept talking in their recognizable but not understandable language.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and I thank you for reading.


End file.
